Most verbs in Nynorsk have a particular vowel ending in infinitive, which will here be referred to as the infinitive ending. The are two such to infinitive endings: -a and -e. As an example, take å spela and å spele, which means "to play". This book will use the infintive ending -a: å spela. å is the infinitive marker and works in a similar or identical way to its English counterpart.

One of the most important verbs is vera (or vere, with the other infinitive ending) and means "to be". Its inflection is highly irregular:

å vera

Infinitive

Present tense

Past tense

Past participle / [Pluperfect]

Present participle

vera

er

var

[har] vore

verande

be

is

was

[have] been

"being"1

1: "being" is usually no good translation for verande, which is most often used in the two adjectival senses "staying" and "suitable [to stay at]". Examples: Vert verande! ("Stay there!") and Der er ikkje verande. ("It's not suitable to stay there.")

Note that Nynorsk does not inflect verbs in number and person like English does; in Nynorsk it is both Eg er ("I am") and Dei er ("they are"). When used as adjectives (past participle), however, a lot of verbs are inflected in number and gender (but never in person). har means "have" and is used in the same way as English have to create pluperfect forms: Eg har vore der. ("I have been there."). Note that the pluperfect minus har equals the neuter form of the past participle.

Many verbs in Nynorsk have an irregular inflection, but a lot of verbs do fall into two regular categories:

regular verbs

Class

Infinitive

Present tense

Past tense

Past participle / [Pluperfect]

Present participle

v1

kasta

kastar

kasta

[har] kasta

kastande

-

throw

throws

threw

[have] thrown

throwing

v2

lysa

lyser

lyste

[har] lyst

lysande

-

be alight

is alight

was alight

[have] been alight

being alight

v3

bu

bur

budde

[har] butt or budd

buande

-

live

lives

lived

[have] lived

living

Note that for the second class, v2, the past participle differentiates between number and definiteness:

The irregular verbs are characterised by a changing root vowel, just like in English. Below is a list of several irregular verbs. As noted earlier, the pluperfect form is har + the neuter form of the past participle (e.g. Dei har kome means "They have come", cf. the table below).

irregular verbs

Infinitive

Present tense

Past tense

Neuter past participle

Present participle

Meaning in English

ta(ka)1

tek or tar

tok

teke or tatt

takande

take

finna

finn

fann

funne

finnande

find

kunna

kan

kunne

kunna

kunnande

can

ko(m)ma2

kjem

kom

kom(m)e

kom(m)ande

come

sjå

ser

såg

sett

sjåande

see

halda

held

heldt

halde

haldande

hold

gje(va)

gjev

gav

gjeve

gjevande

give

dra(ga)

dreg or drar

drog

drege or dratt/-dd3

dragande

pull

1:Several verbs have a longer, older form and a shorter, newer form. The shorter form is typically the most common form. In this case, the two forms are taka and ta. Additionally, there is the form take, with -e as the infinitive ending. The -a in ta is not an infinitive ending; i.e. there is no such form as *te

2: This is another feature that will bother you as you study Nynorsk: parallel forms whose only difference is an m. In this case, the two forms are koma and komma; with yet one more parallel forms for each: kome and komme. koma is the older form, but is still in widespread use.

3: Subsitute -tt for -dd to get the last form. The three forms are thus drege, dratt and dradd

Some verbs are only partially irregular due to the changes they have gone through since Old Norwegian. Some of them are listed below.

semi-irregular verbs

Infinitive

Present tense

Past tense

Neuter past participle

Present participle

Meaning in English

ha

har

hadde

hatt

havande

have

gå

går

gjekk

gått

gåande

walk, go

stå

står

stod

stått

ståande

stand

få

får

fekk

fått

fåande

get, receive

Generally, the present tense is used differently in Nynorsk compared to English. In English one would typically say "He is coming." rather than "He comes.". In Nynorsk, it's only the latter sentence structure that is used in regular verb use: Han kjem. The same holds for other English constructions with verbs like "are/is" and "do", and often "will". E.g. the English sentence "Are you coming?" is Kjem du? in Nynorsk. Likewise "What do you see?" is Kva ser du?, which translated literally would be "What see you?". "I will fix it" is Eg ordnar det, where å ordna is v1 and means "to fix"; so the literal translation is "I fix (present tense) it".

For the v1 class of verbs, the imperative is traditionally equal to the infinitive, like in English: kasta det! ("throw it!") In most contemporary texts, however, the imperative for the v1 class is formed in the same manner as all the other classes:

If the verb has no infinitive ending, the imperative is identical to the infinitive: sjå! ("look!")

If the verb has an infinitive ending and the two letters that precede it are two different consonants, the infinitive is typcially used as imperative in order to make the pronunciation easier: lagra! ("save!", as in a computer interface), but the infinitive ending can also be removed: lagr! ("save!")

If neither of the two previous conditions are met, the imperative is normally created by removing the infinitive ending from the infinitive: kom! ("come!")